


Can I Buy A Pretty Lady A Drink?

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Holby City
Genre: Alcohol, BAW - Berena Appreciation Week 2018, Berena Appreciation Week, Conference, F/F, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 04:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15721965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: Bernie is having a quick bite to eat and a glass of wine in the bar after the end of the conference, when the keynote speaker, Serena Campbell, passes her table. Bernie tells her how much she appreciated her contribution, but is astonished when Serena throws over the people she is with to join her...





	Can I Buy A Pretty Lady A Drink?

She had been lucky to get the table. The bar was heaving, and every table was taken except the little one next to the kitchen, so small you could barely call it a table. It was only free now because the staff had been using it as a place to leave their damp cloths, rather than taking them into the galley kitchen, where there was barely room for the chef, let alone the waiting staff.

She had ignored the obvious signal that this table wasn't for customers, pushed the cloths to the far edge of the table, and draped her coat over the back of the chair to stake her claim on the awkward little space. Placing her order at the bar for a pizza and a glass of wine, she carried her drink carefully back to the table through the heaving throng of bodies. At least it was relatively quiet in that corner, apart from the occasional woman making her way down to the ladies loos in the basement.

Her pizza had just arrived when she noticed a woman descending the stairs. Wasn’t that -? From the back it was hard to be sure, but she could have sworn that it was the keynote speaker from earlier: the illustrious Serena Campbell, no less. Bernie had been blown away not just by the content of her rabble rousing speech, but by the passion with which she had delivered it, by her considerable charm and charisma, and (she couldn’t deny) her extremely shapely figure and wonderfully animated face. At the end of the conference, Bernie had hoped to catch her for a word or two, but Serena had been practically mobbed by what looked like adoring fans, rather than esteemed medical colleagues. Evidently, Bernie was the not the only person whose interest and imagination had been piqued by the vascular surgeon’s impassioned speech: she had spoken almost furiously on the impact of Brexit on the NHS, and their duty as medical professionals to oppose it at every turn.

But Serena was on her own now: or at least, she had briefly broken away from the busy group in the bar. Bernie had noticed them when she first came in, an excitable little knot of people, mostly men, gathered round some unseen nucleus. Well, she knew now who had been at the heart of that swarm. Bernie hadn’t taken so much as a mouthful of her pizza when Serena - for it was unmistakably her now that she was facing her - came back up the stairs. 

Acting quite without thought, Bernie stood up briskly and took a step over to the top of the stairs, not quite blocking the way.

“Hello - I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciated your speech earlier. I’m going to the Trauma thing you’re speaking at next week, as well - I’m so looking forward to it.”

She stood aside again to let Serena pass, her cheeks bright with astonishment at her own bravura, but rather than sidle past her, Serena stopped in her tracks, and actually threw her arms around Bernie, pressing an impulsive kiss to her cheek.

“Oh, bless you, what a lovely thing to say! Did you really like it? Not everyone did - the stuffed shirts at the front seemed positively scandalised at my apparently radical notion of not totally shafting the NHS for future generations. I don’t understand what goes through people’s heads sometimes, do you?”

Bernie shook her head, still lost for words at the enthusiastic response to her greeting, her cheek tingling where the other woman had kissed it.

Serena craned her neck round to look back into the bar area, and Bernie gestured for her to go and rejoin her friends, but Serena turned back to her and said, “Look, this is awfully cheeky of me, but would you mind very much if I joined you? I don’t much feel like going back in there, if I’m honest. There’s only so much fawning one can take in one sitting.”

Bernie shook her head, painfully aware that she was quite ready to do some fawning of her own, and finally found her voice. “No, of course not - please, do. In fact - can I get you a drink? You’ve left yours back there, and you’ll be dragged back in if you go and get it!”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, thank you. They’ve got a passable shiraz here, I’ve discovered.” She saw Bernie off to the bar with a little wink.

This end of the bar was quiet, and Bernie managed to get served almost straight away, and she ordered a large glass of shiraz. The bartender was about to pour it, then looking over Bernie’s shoulder, said, “Oh, it’s for Ms Campbell? We go by the bottle for her,” and he opened a fresh bottle, passing it over with two glasses. Clearly, Serena had made her mark here as well, and Bernie was as amused as pleased to find she was only charged the price of a glass. Bearing it back to the corner, she was puzzled to see the table empty, until Serena explained.

“I’ve asked them to reheat your pizza, I hope that’s all right? It had got cold, with me bending your ear like this. And God knows what that vinegar you were drinking was, but the shiraz is immeasurably better.”

Bernie laughed (the cabernet sauvignon _had_ been a bit ropey, to tell the truth) and poured two generous glasses, passing one to Serena.

“Here’s to proving the stuffed shirts wrong,” she declared, clinking her glass against Serena’s.

“I’ll drink to that. Listen, Bernie - oh, do you mind if I call you Bernie, or would you prefer Major Wolfe?”

Bernie looked up curiously. “No, of course not, but how -?”

“How did I know your name? I came to your talk on trauma surgery in the field yesterday - really fascinating stuff. It occurred to me that there’s a lot the NHS could learn from field medicine, and possibly vice versa. I hung around afterwards trying to catch you, but no luck, alas!”

“Oh! Well, that’s a shame - though I don’t know how you missed me at the end - I hardly have the fan club that you seem to attract!” Her words and tone were teasing, not remotely malicious or envious, and Serena laughed.

“No - your camp followers were a very polite, well-mannered lot - they even formed an orderly queue. I was right at the end of it, and you’d just about reached me when that chap came barrelling over and you made a hasty exit. Not a friend of yours, I take it?”

Bernie scowled. “Hardly. My ex husband - we’ve been divorced for a couple of years, but he still takes delight in embarrassing me in public whenever he can - I left him when I realised I was gay, and he thinks it’s his trump card, though really I couldn’t care less who knows. It just gets boring, and I couldn’t be bothered with it this time, so I made my escape - but I’m sorry it meant I didn’t meet you sooner,” and her scowl was replaced with a shy smile.

“Me too,” Serena said, reaching over to take her hand. “But here we are now, hey? That’s all that matters.” It wasn’t quite a handshake, not quite a hand hold - but whatever it was, the arrival of Bernie’s reheated pizza broke the moment, and Serena leaned back in her chair as Bernie tucked in.

“I was actually coming to chat to you yesterday about next week’s event - who came up with the title Trauma Today, by the way? It sounds more like a threat than a training day! - I was wondering whether you thought this idea of our learning from each other had legs - what do you say? I think we could make quite the partnership, don’t you?”

Serena ended up sharing Bernie’s pizza, and another bottle of shiraz. And at the end of the night, as the bar manager called time, Serena looked boldly into Bernie’s eyes, and said, “How about it soldier? Want to share a taxi as well?”

Bernie did.

**Author's Note:**

> "Write what you know," they say - so here is a fictionalised account of my meetings with Catherine Russell (whom I did buy a drink for, but who did not share my pizza, or indeed my cab!) and Jemma Redgrave - whom I _almost_ met, until a papparazzo sent her scarpering just as she reached the end of the queue at the stage door.
> 
> Maybe I'll be able to write a sequel one day... ;-)


End file.
